The Seattle Street-Smart Naturalist: Field Notes from the City

by David B. Williams

Back to the city, or back to nature? Seattle author David Williams shows us how we can get the best of both. Botany and bugs, geology and geese, and creeks and crows; living in a major city doesn't have to separate us from the natural world. Stepping away from a guidebook format, Williams presents the reader with a series of essays and maps that weave personal musings, bits of humor, natural history observations, and scientific data into a multi-textured perspective of life in the city--descriptions of his journeys as a naturalist in an urban landscape. Williams addresses questions that an observant person asks in an urban environment. What did Seattle look like before Europeans got here? How does the area's geologic past affect us? Why have some animals thrived and other languished? How are we affected by the species with whom we share the urban environment and how do we affect them? This book captures all of the distinctive flavors of the Emerald City, urban and natural.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Science, Natural History

226 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Claudia Skelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in Seattle, I have learned an incredible amount from each chapter of this book - about aspects of Seattle's natural and physical history and how each has evolved and changed over time. Nature and science that we pass by everyday. Author David Williams' text takes us through his intense research and with him on his personal travels throughout our geography. I learned about birds, plants, water, hills, weather, bugs, creek, stones, geese, and much more.

David is a very talented naturalist and geologist. I have read many of his books and this one is a favorite. Through this book I now have a strong connection to nature in the geography I have lived in for 38 years.

[Catonthepillow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice reading to try looking for nature in Seattle city. I feel closer to nature after reading this book.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating natural history of the Seattle area. We are so blessed here to have so much nature around us.

[Jamie Coughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey Seattle people read this it's awesome it will fill you up with fun facts

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable accessible well written informative diverse vignettes on topics pertaining to Nature in the city. Concentration on appreciation of common sights like geese eagles marble and brings to them a fine eye examination.

[Lina · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this book. each night i picked it up and felt like i was escaping into this magical land... but wait a minute-all of these wonders are right in my back yard, at times literally! i feel like this book is an essential read for any pacific northwester. the info is presented in an entertaining easy to understand manner and I dig david's sense of humor. both professionally as someone in the environmental restoration field and personally as someone who loves adventures in the city and struggling with/discovering connection to wildlife and the natural world in an urban area, i found this book very rewarding. while i got this from the library, it is one i might have to go out and buy to have a copy of my own (this is rare for me- i am pretty strictly a library patron!)

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, despite knowing nothing of Seattle and never having visited. But Williams' attitude is endearing and universally applicable if you choose to adopt it. He is a geologist and had a different emphasis on his read of the world around him as a result, which was interesting and fun, even though the time scales of geology give me a little trouble getting engaged with it.

Williams also has a good reply to the argument that preference for native plants is ideology rather than science: as with so much of the human impact on the world, the difficulty is as much or more from the scale and scope as the action itself. In this case, the spread of invasive species is, in one sense, natural, but the rate at which people are making it happen is far from typical in nature.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read about Seattle's natural history. Author has a quirky/geeky sense of humor, which at times is charming but can get old. I found most interesting the chapters in which he moves around the city--following Thornton Creek, searching for Garry oaks, looking for fossils on the buildings of downtown, and so on. Warning: I didn't know whether to laugh or cry while reading the section on Seattle's faults. The description of what we're in for in the "big one" is so absurdly horrifying there's nothing to do but laugh, contemplate your mortality, then go eat a piece of chocolate.

[Johnny G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been an armchair birdwatcher since I was a kid. Okay, armchair isn't the right word for it. I don't go out in search of them, but when I'm out, I look for 'em and watch 'em. And this book addresses Seattle's many natural wonders that I cross paths with on a daily basis. The stones from the buildings in Pioneer Square, the path of Piper's Creek, the bugs I step on accidentally. It's all there. And then he goes back to birds, and I'm won over. Yeah, David.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always cool to read about a place where you live. The author does a great job at making me want to look twice at everyday places like the rocks in the downtown bus tunnels or little creeks running through the neighborhood. So far, I have most enjoyed the chapter on that creek (Meadowbrook?) - and am looking forward to visiting the pond he described - and the chapter describing Seattle's vegetation before there was a city here.

[Wesley Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed it!! It was missing maps, however. So many times I wanted an easy reference to exactly where he was writing about. The notes are insightful and they do reference a page number, but they would have been easier to read had there been precise references in the text - a small number at the end of a paragraph.

I recommend this to anyone who wants to see Seattle with new eyes.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Williams covers several areas of nature that he encounters regularly in an urban setting (Seattle), including different types of birds, insects, weather, water and stone. It made me look at the city that is now my home in a whole new way.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

different cover on my copy

The Eagles
The Fault
The Plants
The Creek [i.e. Thornton Creek]
The Stone [building stone]
The Geese
The Bugs
The Weather
The Hills [the seven?]
The Invaders
The Water [the city's supply]
The Crows

[Kelda · Rating 5 out of 5]

We need one of these books for every town! Awesome! Natural history essays from walking around and checking out all sorts of cool stuff in Seattle's neighborhoods.

[Jenni Pertuset]

I expected this to be more about empowering the reader as observer of and participant in urban nature and less about the author. I suppose I should have paid more attention to the subtitle.

[Manuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some chapters are neat, some are duds. I loved the urban crows chapter. The one about fossils in the sandstone in skyscrapers, zzzzzzzzz.

[Sarah Sliva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read. A little dry at times, but a bit scary at others (see: the chapter on tectonic plates). Inspired me to learn a bit more about the species of flora/fauna in this area that I now call home.

[Jim Rymsza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super book about local geography, watersheds and species. Everything (almost everything) you ever wanted to know about the wilds of Seattle.

[doleary · Rating 4 out of 5]

really interesting look at Seattle from a naturalist point of view. so many walks I want to tkae!
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